While we work on designing and building our permanent home, we stay in a trailer that we reclaimed from a property that was sold by our real estate agent to another couple. Neither the new buyers nor seller of the property wanted the trailer and so it was essentially ‘donated’ to us. Eventhough it was technically 'free,' it cost us some time and effort to extract it from it's long-time resting place, as you can see below.
Once it finally got to our property, the real work began. Here is what the inside looked like when we received it.
We got to work on the renovations which have been good practice before building our actual home. Andrés, as a builder by trade, is already aware of the challenges and true costs (time and money) of building anything for that matter yet even he had some revelations when it came to using reclaimed materials for the trailer refurb and other building projects on the land. I can see his mind constantly buzzing with ideas how to make various things fit and work properly by trying to save yet another causuality from the land fill. Practically every single item used to refurbish this trailer has been salvaged.
Below you can see how we removed an estimated hundred year old floor from an attic in downtown Toronto restored the boards and installed them into our temporary dwelling.
Below you can see how we removed an estimated hundred year old floor from an attic in downtown Toronto restored the boards and installed them into our temporary dwelling.
Once the main floor was down and the custom-made bed box was built in, we got to work on the kitchen.
And here's how the rest of it looked at the end of 2013.
While work was being done on the inside, we also decided to build a roof over the trailer for a few reasons. It covers double the area of the trailer so it can protect it from further weathering plus it gives us a covered storage space. Furthermore, it will be used to harvest rainwater. My dad and brother are both builders and were able to come up and help us one weekend to do the main framing.
Now I know what you’re thinking – you want to know how and where do we take showers?!? It is true, current utilities are limited. We are truly off grid. The electric lines stop about half a kilometer from our property. This is what we do:
Water – For now we collect water in 5 gallon jugs from a free tap in town. We use this town water for drinking, cooking, and bathing – which we do out of little wash basin after we’ve heated the water. In the summer we take a dip in the nearby Lake L’Amable and use biodegradable soap. We plan to have water harvesting going this spring from the roof over our trailer, we will then filter this water in a Berkey water filter which will make it suitable for drinking.
Electricity – from July 2013 til about April 2014 we were using flashlights in the trailer in the evening, charging the one cell phone in our truck or our friend’s place. Then we installed a 12volt solar panel system with four batteries, an inverter and charge controller. This system powers the $5 LED lights, charges the two cell phones, our laptop, the cordless power tool batteries and a hand immersion blender I use to make puréed soups. For plug-in power tools we use an electric generator.
Single solar panel outside
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DIY electrical panel inside
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Heating – we bought and installed a new stove pipe and chimney in September 2013. This connected to a lovely, antique wood stove that was donated to us. Even though it could hold a decent fire the heat didn't last for very long plus the trailer is not insulated for winter temperatures and lastly the flimsy single pane windows created an unbearable draft. That winter the average nightly temperatures were around -20 Celsius, so we'd take turns doing the night shift of fire tending, getting up around 3-4 times a night. Luckily by chance we were given another, more modern wood stove, that only needed a bit of sanding, painting and a new gasket and it was ready to go. This new stove holds much more heat for a longer time. Furthermore, we installed new (salvaged) double paned windows to replace three of the old drafty trailer windows. This meant we only needed to get up once (if at all) during the night to revive the fire during the -15 to -20 Celsius nights we spent on the land this past winter. With this system, we generally wake up to around +8 to +15 Celsius inside.
Sewage – outhouses. We dug a hole and built a shelter around it. The first one was done with old pallets and used lumber tarps. The second one was also framed with old pallets, claded with chopped old ply boards, and roofed with salvaged tin. We wish to convert it into a compost toilet (when we find the time).
The building of the first outhouse:
The building of the second outhouse:
